Causation, Norms, and Cognitive Bias
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21306264 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Levin Güver (University College London), Markus Kneer (0000-0002-4223-0715, Graz University of Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 259 |
| Pages | 106105 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cognition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0010-0277 • E-ISSN: 1873-7838 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106105 |
| PMID | 40112704 |
| OpenAlex | W4408588775 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 68 |
Extant research has shown that ordinary causal judgements are sensitive to normative factors. For instance, agents who violate a norm are standardly deemed more causal than norm-conforming agents in identical situations. In this paper, we present novel findings that go against predictions made by several competing accounts that aim to explain this so-called "Norm Effect". By aid of a series of five preregistered experiments (N = 2'688), we show that participants deem agents who violate nonpertinent or silly norms - norms that do not relate to the outcome at hand, or for which there is little independent justification - as more causal. Furthermore, this curious effect cannot be explained by aid of potential mediators such as foreknowledge, desire or foreseeability of harm. The "Silly Norm Effect", we argue, spells trouble for several views of folk causality in the literature, and lends support to a Bias View, according to which Norm Effects are the result of blame-driven bias. We close with a discussion of the relevance of these findings for the just assessment of causation in the law
Causation · Cognition · Cognitive bias · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Neuroscience · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Judgments of cause and blame
Cause and Norm
The Evaluability Hypothesis
Hindsight Bias
Most people are not Weird
Conducting Meta-Analyses in R with the metafor Package
The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy
Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy
Difference and Robustness in the Patterns of Philosophical Intuition Across Demographic Groups
Demographic Differences in Philosophical Intuition
Causation, Responsibility, and Typicality
Judging accidental harm
Blame-validation
Mutual entailment between causation and responsibility
Outcome effects, moral luck and the hindsight bias
Causal judgments about atypical actions are influenced by agents' epistemic states
An interaction effect of norm violations on causal judgment
Counterfactual thinking and recency effects in causal judgment
The pervasive impact of ignorance
Choices, values, and frames
Blaming Badly
Two types of typicality
They should have known better
Graded Causation and Defaults
Culpable causation
Culpable control and the psychology of blame
Recent empirical work on the relationship between causal judgements and norms
Causation
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |